March 05, 2006

My dognity at stake

What is about dogs, really? Over the last couple of days, there have been a smattering of reports about how "staffers at Rajghat" and then "opposition MPs" were upset because US Secret Service personnel took sniffer dogs around the memorial to Gandhi. The staffers were "fuming with anger" because "this was the first time that a dog was brought this close to the memorial". As for the MPs, Kirpa Parmar (BJP) decided that the presence of dogs at this "holy place" was -- I swear I am not making this up -- "an assault on the dignity of the nation."

Is this guy serious? Are those fuming guys serious? Should we take them seriously?

In no way do I feel an assault on my, or my country's, dignity because a dog sniffed around Rajghat. The thought itself is simply ludicrous. On the other hand, over the years I have felt affronted when certain humans have visited the place. This is hardly the place to name them, of course.

But a dog? What's the matter with these fumers? Why do we equate dogs to insult?

***

Postscript: Good news! Sunday's paper carries a picture of several young men flinging petals at Rajghat, with this caption:
    SANCTITY POLICE: Members of Delhi Pradesh Vaish Mahasammelan offer flowers at Rajghat on Saturday. They "cleansed" the memorial following uproar over use of sniffer dogs during President Bush's visit.
Question: what would Mohandas Gandhi think of the dogs? What would he think of these petals? What would he think of the members of the Delhi Pradesh Vaish Mahasammelan?

9 comments:

Kumar Appaiah said...

"I have felt affronted when certain humans have visited the place."

Calling them humans is in itself giving them too much respect.

zap said...

Why do we equate dogs to insult?
Because of Dharmendra.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Zap. Not only this, we also have to endure Esha Deol because of Dharmendra.

Arun said...

Let's talk about something more important than dogs at the Rajghat.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/3/5/8207/65670 contains a statement by a British socialist party. I'll just quote the conclusion here. If the so-called Indian secularists can make such a statement intending to live by it, then they'll get my support. But Dcubed himself has previously refused to do so - in India only "majority" communalism or obscurantism has to be opposed and no other. That is why people like Dcubed are called "pseudosecularists".

I can only hope that Indian leftists who take most of their cues from abroad see the light.

Either we will fight racism and discrimination against Muslims and Muslim communities in Britain and elsewhere in Europe. Either, while doing that, we will find a way to combine that defence of those communities with opposition to them where they are bases of political, cultural, and civic reaction -- where they are champions of intolerance, bigotry, and sanctified ignorance, trying to spread it from the large areas in the Muslim world where it is the norm, into the bourgeois democracies of the West.

Or, we cease to be socialists and democrats ourselves. In the name of combatting racism and imperialism

Arun said...

Or, we cease to be socialists and democrats ourselves. In the name of combatting racism and imperialism, we capitulate to reactionary Islamism.

Dilip D'Souza said...

Normally this pseudosecularist doesn't respond to tests posed by anonymous "Aruns", but anyway.

Here's a statement I make because I believe I live by it:

I will fight racism and discrimination against Muslims and Muslim communities wherever; while doing that, I will find a way to combine that defence of those communities with opposition to them where they are bases of political, cultural, and civic reaction -- where they are champions of intolerance, bigotry, and sanctified ignorance, trying to spread it from the large areas in the Muslim world where it is the norm, into wherever.

But note: I don't make it because I'm in the least interested in "support" from anonymous "Aruns". I believe I'm better off in that fight without such support.

And of course, I leave it to anonymous "Aruns" to explain what this has to do with dogs apparently besmirching Rajghat.

zap said...

please don't do to aruns what they did to dogs :)

Arun

Anonymous said...

The actual question is "what would Mohandas Gandhi think of Rajghat" ? I dont think he wil be paying much attention to the loonies .

Anonymous said...

Chill out guys. Bush is saving his sniffer pigs for his Saudi trip.